Today I got kicked out of a pet store and locked out of my house.  Then things got interesting.

Bo and I took our puppy along to do some post Christmas shopping this morning. We hit one of our favorite Seattle neighborhoods to check out some shirts for me and a bone for Matia. 

Our first stop was a sporting goods store, the kind that lure you in with second hand virtues, only to find yourself buying all of the brand new, full-price merchandise.  Bo talked to the man about triathlon bikes while I tried on one coat and then another for forty minutes.  Forty minutes may seem like a long time to try on two coats, but not when you consider that this coat must move from city to mountain with finesse.  As I find myself finally succumbing to Seattle's fleece fashion: believing that one can mix fine dining with synthetic fibers, I needed the perfect mix of form and function. And I found it - on sale even.  

I walked out of the store in high retail spirits and knelt down to greet Matia. She had waited patiently outside, happily greeting each passerby with a wagging tail and a smile. As I untied Matia's leash from the metal bike rack, I noticed the leash had been torn and retied - probably repaired by our dog walker.  It was our dear dog Kinsey's old leash, so Bo and I decided it was time for Matia to have a new one and added that to our list for the pet store.

At the pet store, I explored my leash options with the woman behind the counter.  It was one of those little boutique pet stores that are all over Seattle, places intended for people like me who will spend money on pets that parents would spend on children.  But even I have limits.  I chose a retractable leash like her old one, but with newer technology, a flat tape that retracts instead of a cord. Turns out too many people have been injured, literally clotheslined, by retractable cords and they no longer sell them for big Golden Retrievers like Matia. I wasn't thrilled by the forty dollar price tag, but threw in a big old knuckle bone, paid and we were on our way.

My wallet and stomach were both feeling lighter so Bo and I abandoned our retail agenda and went straight to lunch at a little Thai place.  We found a table in the front next to a big picture window where we could watch our pooch while we ate.  As we downed fresh rolls and slurped noodles, Matia enchanted the pedestrians to the point that we had to stop eating and pantomime responses through the window to the comments from those outside.  "She's so cute" one lady seemed to be saying, or maybe it was "How's the soup?" I'm no lip reader, but clearly Matia was a hit. Our yummy lunch seemed like just one more stop, in a day full of promise. 

Bellies full, we wandered out to collect Matia and head home, but reaching down to untie her new leash from the telephone pole, I noticed a large tear in the fabric tape.  In the space of a half hour lunch, the friction on the wood, had ripped the leash. Since we had to pass the pet store on our way to the car anyway, we decided to drop in and get another leash.  Maybe they would replace the leash free of charge, or give us a discount on the new one.

I found myself in a moral quandary.  Should I tell the lady that I'd tied Matia up and that caused the rip.  Maybe this wasn't allowed.  Maybe I'd have to pay full price.  I found myself using my business tactics: saying not much and keeping the situation ambiguous.

"Hi" I said, "We just bought this leash from you and it's already ripped." Pause.

"Really?" She responded. "That is strange."  "Did she chew through it."

This put me on edge.  

"No. I don't believe so.  She was just sitting outside of the restaurant for a half hour.  I don't see how she could have chewed through a leash in that amount of time."

"Oh" She replied with a pregnant pause. And then "You tied her up.  Well that explains it.  It says in the instructions not to tie the leash to anything."

Now I'm thinking, leashes come with instructions? Come on.  Computers come with instructions.  Desks from Ikea come with instructions.   But leashes: a piece of fabric that retracts into a hard plastic case, who needs instructions for that?  Me evidently.  So while the ex-software tester in me is wondering why no one thought of the "use case" where a pet owner would tie the leash to a stationary object, such as a telephone pole, in the testing of a forty dollar leash, the woman remains silent. 

"Do you have any leashes I could tie to telephone poles?" I ask.  

"Not retractable ones." She replies.  "But you could get a regular leash."

"That won't work for her.  She's a puppy and she's still pulling on the leash." I say.

"Maybe you should try doggy training classes." The woman says, a bit too steadily. 

I'm starting to get a bit angry, so I pay for the new retractable leash, expecting, hoping that maybe the woman will give me a discount on the new one.  But she rings it up. Forty bucks and change and hands it to me.  

I turn to leave. Noting Bo at the door and his even tempered gaze.  He's been studying this conversation all along.  Watching, waiting, ready to be there for me, but also ready to keep me from making a complete ass out of myself.  He knows me well after ten years.   

As we turn to step out the front door I mutter under my breath "That was lame." I realize this was a childish thing to say, and I'm immediately sorry to say it, but at the same time the situation is lame.  I just paid eighty dollars for a leash I can't tie to anything and endured nit-picking comments from the woman selling me the leash.

The woman at the counter doesn't miss a beat.  She replies, loudly enough for the two other people in the store to hear: "What's lame is that you haven't trained your dog."

I'd like to say that I turned the other cheek on this comment.  That I was mature enough to continue walking out the door.   But I'm not perfect.  Instead I turned heal, walked back to the counter, told the woman her comment was rude and demanded a refund for the new leash.  To my credit I didn't hurl any names at her, nor she at me.  But it ended with Bo intervening, shuffling me out of the store, me vowing never to return, and the woman fuming and refusing to refund me anything.

After I talked to Bo, and my mother, and left word for my friend Joanne, these three being my collective moral compass, I was still not proud of my behavior, but also really pissed to be judged in this way by this stranger. I started thinking about other encounters with well-intentioned dog owners at dog parks, people who say things like: "The proper command is 'off' not 'down'" or who move their dog to the other side of the street when they see a puppy, rather than let the chaos tempt their canine from their heel. 

I went for a long run a few hours later, still contemplating my actions, not thinking I was a bad puppy parent, but wondering why I still have this anger in me, how a perfect stranger could toss a little bit of judgment my way and get my goat. It's none of her business how I raise my pooch, or in a broader sense how I live me life, so why do I care so much? And the answer came to me, it's because I'm a lot like this woman.  I've got too much judgment in me, about how others live their lives, the choices they make.  If you read this blog you probably find this undercurrent between the lines. I was angry because I've been trying to rid myself of this tendency, trying to absorb the best of Seattle's tolerance. It hurts to be judged.  Over the last few years I really thought I'd been unlearning those tendencies, that this old dog was learning some new tricks.

I got home from my run just as the last of the sun's light was fading.  The house was dark, Matia inside, but Bo was off swimming at an indoor pool. I walked around the house to the back yard, opened the gate and walked up our stairs to the back patio door, the one I had left unlocked and expressly asked Bo to leave unlocked.

It was locked. Matia sat on the other side of this locked sliding glass door looking at me.  Her expression one of curiosity, like "Oh you again. What's keeping you? Why don't you come inside already and feed me?" But try as I might to open the door, a large wooden rod was jammed between the door and the frame along the floor, this rod being our burglar-proofing strategy.  And I have to admit that strategy works pretty well. 

I tried the window by the door, ran down the stairs and around the house again, trying all of the doors, all locked.  It was getting dark.  I was getting cold.  And my running outfit was entirely too embarrassing to take into the local pub for a drink while I waited for Bo to return.  Matia was my only hope, my untrained puppy.  I wandered back to the glass door, squatted down to her level and started pawing at the glass with my hands, trying to get her to mimic my behavior, hoping that she would paw the floor and knock the wooden rod out of the frame so I could open the door.

I realize this was a long shot, a dog trick akin to getting a beer out of the fridge or riding a skateboard.  Dogs opening doors is the kind of thing you see on Letterman, but moving a stick is not that out of the ordinary. 

"Get the stick Matia! Get the stick!"  I implored her as I vigorously pawed the glass door from outside.  She cocked her head to one side.  I had her attention.  Wasn't attention the most important thing? Didn't I read that in that book about the monks who raise dogs? Maybe I hadn't invested in puppy school, but my girl was looking at me.  She was rapt.  I tried again. 

 "Get the stick Matia! Get the stick!" This time a bark.  Ooh that's good.  Very good.  And I kept at it.  Then she started pawing the glass.  I am not kidding.  This really happened. After her third or forth try of pawing the glass, she stopped.  I thought I was in for a cold night, but then she flopped down on the floor, in a classic playful puppy move, and her paws were on the stick.  As I stared in disbelief she popped up again, pulling her front paws under her and the stick moved out of the door frame. And I was inside.

"Good girl Matia!" I exclaimed as I knelt down to give her a hug.  As she jumped up on me and put both paws on my shoulders, I thought about telling her no, that this wasn't good dog behavior.  But instead I just returned her hug and decided not to return to that pet store.